Japan Move-In Cost Calculator

How to lower this

1. Skip the fees with furnished housing. Furnished share houses and private furnished apartments skip the big up-front charges entirely. Two options worth comparing:
   • Cross House's クロスワンルーム — the private furnished one-rooms this link opens — advertises rooms from around ¥38,000/month (central-Tokyo areas from the ¥60,000s), with ¥0 deposit, ¥0 key money, and ¥0 agency fee, fully furnished with appliances, on short-term contracts. The honest trade-off is that the rooms are compact and the lowest prices sit outside the central wards — but it can erase almost the entire up-front stack above.
   • Oakhouse (オークハウス) — one of Japan's largest share-house operators, and, usefully if your Japanese is limited, one that runs a full English-language site with 24-hour multilingual support — lists share-house rooms with no deposit, no key money, and no agency fee. It is not quite ¥0 up front, though: it charges a one-time, non-refundable contract fee (from about ¥10,000 for a dormitory bed up to around ¥50,000 for a private room), plus a small ¥2,200 bed-pad fee, with the first month's rent prorated. The trade-off is shared kitchens and bathrooms, but the up-front cost stays low and transparent.
2. Search for 礼金ゼロ / 敷金ゼロ listings. Zero-key-money is now common — over 40% of higher-rent Tokyo listings. That alone removes 1–2 months of rent.
3. Decline the declinables. 室内消毒 (disinfection) and 24hサポート are usually optional if not written into the lease — ask to remove them.
4. Bring your own fire insurance. You can often buy a 火災保険 policy yourself for roughly half the agency's price.
5. Use a half-fee or no-fee agency. 仲介手数料半額 / 無料 listings are legal and common.
6. Move outside March–April. Off-peak movers cost far less than the spring rush.

See the full negotiation guide, with Japanese scripts →